


Steps/Blue and Knobby

by Ladycat



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Anaphylaxis, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Team
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-12
Updated: 2014-02-12
Packaged: 2018-01-12 03:20:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1181281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladycat/pseuds/Ladycat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Carter's first real away mission, and she knows it's going to be an easy one." -- two stories dealing with allergies and Milky Way assumptions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Steps

The fire crackles in the distance, a familiar sound to anyone who's gone on as many missions as she has. Pegasus is generally more primitive than the Milky Way, but Carter suspects that a love of simpler things has a lot to do with it. Living under the shadow of the Wraith has taught this galaxy to hold on to what's truly important, and there's something almost magical about sitting outside at night, flickering orange the only light necessary because the people moving against a starry background is far more important than the sterile room they could be in.

Accepting her bowl with a nod, Carter leans forward to inhale deeply. The meat isn't beef, and the vegetables are different colors, but the rich heartiness of the stew is familiar and welcome. The finest chefs in any galaxy would be lost on her.

There's no artifice, but it seems inevitable that she should glance over just as Sheppard accepts -- accepts _Rodney's_ bowl of stew? With practiced, habitual movements, Sheppard pulls out a small piece of equipment that even in the fire-light looks jury-rigged at best, spooning a few drops of the base onto the lip at the edge of the device.

"Colonel?" she asks.

Sheppard gives her a distracted smile that turns to a frown when the device beeps. "Rodney."

"Yes, yes, I know what that sound means as much as you." Rodney is disgruntled, tossing longing looks at the stew, but acts resigned as he pulls out an MRE.

On the other side of the fire, Teyla accepts Sheppard's nod and intercepts the frowning dignitary who is hosting them, explaining her teammates' action in quiet tones. Their host does not look particularly happy, but nor does he look like he's about to make a diplomatic incident.

Carter's been there a few times: Daniel had been a lot pickier at first.

"Rodney?"

"Citrus, of course," he explains as he begins heating up his MRE. Meatloaf, if Carter is reading the foil right. It's not bad, necessarily, but it can't be nearly as good as the stew she's eating. "Probably one of the vegetables -- there'll be something blue-ish and oblong, I bet, and it has trace amounts of citrus in it."

Surprised, Carter looks back towards Sheppard. She's heard all about Rodney's deathly allergies, before, but she'd always assumed that even if he was allergic, it wasn't exactly life-threatening. The man did lend himself to hyperbole...

Sheppard looks back at her steadily. "Check out the report from MX7-843," he says, face blank and voice deceptively soft. He's hovering pretty close to Rodney, who barely seems aware of it, and idly fixes the coffee when Rodney's too busy attempting to deal with the mashed potatoes.

All without taking his eyes off of hers.

Oh. Gulping, Carter reminds herself that not only is this not the Milky Way, this isn't the SGC. Things are _different_ here in the Pegasus galaxy, and she doesn't have three years of hard-won knowledge to provide the cues and details she needs.

Trying not to gulp, she smiles and nods at Sheppard, returning to her own meal. But for the rest of the night she watches how seamlessly Sheppard's team works together, bolstering and explaining each others' foibles to the local people, even as they do the same for each other: Ronon pitches everyone's tent, but it's Rodney who brings him his dinner, not waiting for a local to do so, chatting idly with him while Sheppard, Carter and, most particularly, Teyla speak with their hosts.

It's not something they have to think about. Not even casually.

Later, tucked in her tent with Teyla, Carter thinks about the way Sheppard's eyes had gone flinty and cold as he mentioned a past mission where, presumably, Rodney's allergy really was as bad as he'd always claimed it was.

She's got to start reading the past missions. Not just scanning them, but _reading_ them, and finding the things no one actually says but everybody knows.

"Teyla," she says, "perhaps when we get back to -- to home, you and I could have a cup of tea together?"

The atmosphere in the tent isn't oppressive, but still it lightens as Teyla shifts more comfortably, her smile audible and very, very smug as she says, "I would like that very much, Colonel Carter."


	2. Blue and Knobby

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With all my thanks to [Sharlaid](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Sharlaid), who helped me with Zelenka's words.

John doesn't get it, at first. He just stares -- they all just stare -- because no matter how many times he's heard all the intimate details, lovingly retold by Rodney or clinically and carefully by Carson, he just doesn't _recognize_ it:

Rodney's lips, blue and swollen, his face ashen even with sweat running in visible paths over his cheeks; the way air wheezes in tiny rattles, his throat working over and over like he's trying to swallow a piece of something that is stuck and oh, oh _god!_

It's Teyla who puts together one and one to make fifteen, leaping into action while John can only stare, annoyed orders crumbling to useless, terrified ash on his tongue.

Just a _vegetable_. Blue and knobby and the source of, John had thought, many a joke in their future.

"John!" Teyla's agonized order penetrates and John loses his shock, his surprise, because he needs to do this. He _needs to do this_.

Light blurs crazily as he pushes Teyla aside roughly, but she doesn't notice, rubbing Rodney's chest and throat with the menthol-like salve that she keeps to stop him from snoring, a joke between friends who are annoyed by as often as they depend on each other, murmuring frantic reassurances, _"Breathe, Rodney, you must breathe. Look at me, yes, do this for me, please, just breathe, you are all right. We will take care of you."_ Rodney is jerking, doing his best impression of a landed-fish and dimly John hopes he'll be able to tell Rodney this, that they'll be able to joke about it even as he slaps the epi-pen into Rodney's thigh, pressing it so hard that the needle pulls out bloody when he's done.

It's Ronon who explains to the bewildered and frightened natives what's going on, Ronon who is too big, too menacing to doubt, particularly when he can't stay more than a foot from Rodney -- none of them can, extolling him to breathe, to speak, to god, _be okay_ \-- and his palpable worry is the only explanation needed.

For the natives to take them prisoner, of course.

It makes a sick kind of sense, because the Pegasus galaxy is the original home of Murphy’s favorite law: it can _always_ be worse.

Things blur after that, John so angry that he completely loses every bit of hard won cool, screaming the kind of words his mother used to slap him for, eyes stinging because Rodney _wasn't breathing_ , not without Teyla's voice and touch, John going through every fucking pen they had and cursing that three years hadn’t taught them all to bring more.

It’s the first time, though. The first real time that isn’t Rodney taking his own pulse, measuring his own breathing in a fear they’d always mocked before, because Rodney is _built_ to be mocked, a clown stuffed full of brilliance that requires people to air him out or face being smothered by words full of useless, esoteric meaning.

Nursing a rib he suspects might be broken, trapped in a dirt-floor cell, walls laden with cold, clammy moisture that can’t be good for Rodney -- pale and barely conscious, leaning against Ronon for the only comfort any of them can offer -- John hates himself just a little bit.

He can’t do anything. He can’t do anything but get them out of here, get Rodney into hands that know what they’re doing, and he has no idea how to -- 

Across the room, Ronon meets his eyes.

The exact details become a blur, washed out under the lurid worry, but when they finally tumble through the ’gate, all of their hands are bloody, their their clothes torn and dirty, and none of them care.

"Rodney," John gasps out, grabbing Carson's wrist so hard the bones grind between his fingers, forgetting that he’s said this, starting before the ’gate flares into watery light, words jumbling together like marbles in his mouth until not even he knows what he’s saying except _McKay_ and _Beckett_. "You have to -- "

"I know, lad," Carson says, oddly gentle for all he has to want to get to Rodney, to get away from the pain John's gifting him with. "I know. You did it just right, all of you, but we'll take over from here, all right? There's a good lad, let us work."

Rodney's bi-phasic, this time, or maybe it's deca-phasic, because John can't remember the last time he _hasn't_ heard Rodney wheeze, body laboring for the barest hint of sweet, clean air. All three of them camp out in the infirmary until they're kicked out -- Lorne, apologetic but firm with several larger marines standing nervously behind him -- and when they leave, it's to follow Ronon’s long, purposeful strides directly to the science labs.

John looks at Teyla, eyebrows up, but neither of them say anything.

"You." Ronon is big, and powerful, and _frightened_ and somehow that makes him a minor Titan come to earth, Atlas about to shrug his shoulders and send all of them scattering.

Zelenka blinks under Ronon's gaze but remains otherwise steady. "Yes?"

"We need something. A machine. Gizmo." Across the room, someone mouths _gizmo?_ , lips flashing an unwanted distraction, but is just smart enough not to interrupt. "Something to analyze the stuff we eat."

Zelenka gets it by then, got it as soon as Ronon said _need_ probably, and by _analyze_ his face is blank, eyes moving back and forth feverishly as he begins to chip away at the problem.

In the back of the room, the same scientist makes a snorting, dismissive sound. It's for the science, John knows, for once again being requested to do the impossible. Except Pegasus _is_ the impossible, and time after repeated time, the impossible is delivered into waiting hands, gift-wrapped with paper that shows birthday cakes and long, silvery ribbons.

Only the impossible can _survive_ here.

John isn’t the only one to hear: "You will spar with both Ronon and myself," Teyla says, voice diamond-hard and edged with anger, looking directly at the unfortunate scientist, suddenly standing all alone in the back of the room, ringed by scientists looking anywhere but at Sheppard and his team.

Loyalty is never in question.

"And when you're done," John says, while Ronon growls a menacing agreement, "you're to report to me."

It’s not an order John can make, really, but Rodney’s only possessive of his people when they deserve it, and Zelenka has always followed suit. "Yes, yes, that is very good idea, Dr. Anders,” he says, clearly not paying much attention while Anders splutters in wordless dismay, “you will do as the Colonel says without complaint or _I_ will offer my own suggestions, yes?"

Anders pales, gulping, because Rodney may have his scientists cowed into meek obedience, but when it comes to creative punishments, it is Zelenka they have learned to fear.

"I will have what you ask in a day," Zelenka promises Ronon, eyes sober behind dirty lenses, mouth drawn down in worry. “To přísahám.”

Nodding, Ronon turns on his heel and sweeps out, Teyla and John hard on his heels. None of them know what to do or where to go, but suddenly Lorne is there, distracting John with duties he can’t ignore and it’s easy to rope Ronon into helping him. Teyla goes with Elizabeth, face pinched with worry and anger both, explaining the way John knows he can’t.

He _should_. It’s his job to do so. But he can still hear Rodney’s breath rattling, can see his face getting paler and paler as his body shuts down, and whatever thoughts he might have go sailing away, leaving him shaking with helpless anger and fear all over again.

Lorne just works around it.

Zelenka is as good as his word and when Rodney wakes up coherently for the first time since leaving Atlantis, breathing cleanly, if slowly, body still caught up in a sedatives limitations, it's to his team grinning like school children, presenting him with a machine that will ensure this never happens again.

Ever.

Rodney nods, accepting it as his due, and eventually goes to sleep with two heads resting near his blanket-covered knees, a third pillowed inches from his own, all four of them breathing in perfect sync.


End file.
